I Heart Fangirl Service
by greengirlblue
Summary: In a word: ridiculous. In a few more: recycled jokes about hair gel, canon relationships or lack thereof, and muffins. And lo, how the mighty have fallen...
1. possibly au

I Heart Fangirl Service  
a parody by greengirlblue  
based on _Kingdom Hearts_ fanfiction  
and, of course, the _Kingdom Hearts_ game

Episode One:  
The OOC

This all started on a Saturday afternoon at Kairi's house, possibly in an alternate universe from the game, possibly not, but in any case, it started on a Saturday afternoon with Kairi jogging up the stairs to her room with a plate of chocolate muffins in her hands. Riku, Sora and herself had put them in the oven earlier that morning before going upstairs to play Scrabble. When the timer went off, announcing that the muffins had finished baking to chocolaty perfection, Kairi had volunteered to get the plates, partly because both Sora and Riku looked so comfortable where they were, partly because she'd get first dibs on the largest muffin of the group.

Although Kairi was sure she had left the door open before skipping down the stairs, it was shut when she got back. Kairi didn't really think about it, since she figured Riku or Sora had shut it to block out the noise of the Scrabble game, as it was a very exciting game, really, what with Riku and Sora arguing over whether or not 'spork' was a real word or not. They must have forgotten that her parents were out combing local garage sales, and if they _could_ hear Riku and Sora, then closing the bedroom door probably wouldn't help much. So, without hesitation, Kairi kicked the door open.

"Hey! I've got the muf—" she began.

"Oh," she hedged.

"Um..." she continued.

"I'll just leave then," she finished awkwardly, turning with the muffins still in hand. "Sorry."

"That's okay," Riku, who was currently straddled atop Sora's stomach, said with a bright smile. Whatever it was that the two were doing, it looked at least PG-13 rated, as Riku didn't have his shirt on and was leaning over Sora, his hands encircling Sora's wrists on either side of the spiky-haired teen.

"No, it is _not_ okay!" Sora said indignantly. He made a show of trying to get up, but being pinned down to the bed with Riku's weight and hands, it was difficult. "This is _not_ okay. This is anything _but_ okay, okay? Wha— wait! Kairi, don't—"

But, it was too late, because Kairi had vanished rather rapidly into the hallway, closing the door behind her.

"Kairi!" Sora shouted after her. "Kai—"

Riku released one of Sora's wrists and held a finger against Sora's lips, effectively silencing him.

"Shush," Riku said in a low purring sort of voice. "We're all alone. Shall I whisper sweet nothings in your ear?"

"This is not canon," Sora hissed through gritted teeth as Riku leaned his face towards him, his pale hair tickling Sora's cheeks.

"No, it's not," Riku agreed happily, pressing the top of Sora's nose like an elevator button. "It's fangirl service (heart!)."

Sora gaped, completely appalled.

"What the… what do you mean, 'fangirl service (heart!)'? Who are you, and what have you done to Riku?"

_Meanwhile_

The real Riku and Wakka (who, just so we're clear on this, was the real Wakka, as well) were having a tea party on the beach.

"Well, yes," Riku said, somewhat surprised but pleasantly enough, "Now that you mention it, I _do_ have an evil twin who likes to steal my invitations to bake muffins at Kairi's house on Saturdays." He paused, sipped his tea, and continued. "Why do you ask?"

Wakka took a swallow of his own tea too, paused, and pulled the cup away. He looked at the tea, swirled it around a bit, and reached over for a sugar packet.

"Wild guess," he replied finally, tearing the packet open and pouring into his cup.

"Mnn," Riku said in the middle of sipping his tea.

Wakka took another swallow from his own cup, paused again, and reached for another sugar packet.

"By the way, don't you have a crush on Sora?" Wakka asked.

Riku's eyebrows rose slightly, but before Wakka could decide if that meant anything, Riku tilted his head and his teacup back further and continued drinking.

"Mnnn….?" Riku inquired politely.

_By this time_

Kairi had found Selphie just after leaving Riku (the false one) and Sora (the one and only!) upstairs. Actually, Kairi had left the house entirely, being a little dazed, with the muffins still in her hands. Selphie had just been passing by, but now she and Kairi were swinging on the porch swing. Kairi had explained what she had seen.

"I guess I should be happy for them, right?" Kairi said miserably, shoulders hunched.

Sora's voice floated down from the upstairs window, which happened to be open.

"KAIRI! HELP!"

Kairi brightened a little, not noticing Sora's voice. "I mean, it's actually kind of romantic, isn't it?" she added.

"KAI--! Aagh! Stop! Ha ha… no really, that – ha ha ha! That tickles."

But just as suddenly, her face darkened again.

"Still," she sighed, "he was my first crush. This sucks."

Ah, here was ground Selphie was sure of. "Yes! Boys suck!" she agreed. "But I heart muffins!"

And with that statement, Selphie took a muffin from Kairi's plate. After a moment, Kairi too decided to eat a muffin, and decided that boys weren't worth bothering over, really.

"Ha ha," Sora laughed. "HA HA HAHA HA-DANGIT, I said stop it!

_Elsewhere_

Tidus, who was feeling somewhat ignored in this fic, and also since he wasn't clear if Yuna existed in this universe or not, joined Wakka and Riku's Fun Fun Tea Party on the Beach.

"Hi," he said, standing at a point that created an isosceles triangle between the three of them.

"'Sup?" said Wakka, who had a collection of empty sugar packets piled by his tea saucer.

"Mmn," said Riku around his teacup.

The three enjoyed a comfortable silence, but after a few minutes, Tidus cleared his throat.

"Riku, I don't think there's any more tea left in that cup," he said hesitantly.

Riku only tipped his head further back, then leaned backwards away from the group, the teacup still firmly against his lips.

_Epilogue_

Sora was not seriously traumatized in this fic. In fact, Kairi came to her senses merely seconds after this story ended and went to defend her room from PG-13-related whateverness, where she discovered that Riku was actually Enrique Antonio Xavier, Riku's evil twin who everyone _thought_ was dead from a boat accident three years ago, but who was actually _still alive_! His boat had crash-landed in Europe (so I suppose this really would be AU, then) where Enrique suffered amnesia and wandered into France under the alias of Francois where he learned espionage and had a secret love affair with Lady Betsy, of whom he was secretly spying upon. Who he thought was Lady Betsy was actually Miss Catherine, though, the lowly serving maid in disguise. The real Lady Betsy was on a quest for spiritual enlightenment in L.A., California, where she found her calling in underwater basket-weaving classes. By the way, Catherine is actually a princess of a small kingdom, but she won't find this out until her sixteenth birthday, although Victor, misunderstood youth and jealous adversary of Francois (who, as you recall, is actually Enrique Antonio Xavier, Riku's evil twin), does know this fact already, and has vowed to protect Catherine from corrupt politicians who would try to use her for their own ends...

But anyway, Kairi discovered Enrique posing as Riku and promptly kicked him out of her room, and Sora was forever grateful to her, despite the fact that it had taken that long for her to help.

_The End_


	2. sidequest

I Heart Fangirl Service_  
is brought to you by..._  
Heartios Cereal:  
a healthy part of a hardy breakfast!

Episode Two: _Sora Vs Sephiroth_

Part One

Sora used to be a kid with normal hair.

No, really. I'm serious. It was just messy as opposed to gravity-defying.

But then he had these reoccurring dreams...

In these dreams, he was standing in the center of an arena very much like the sort the ancient Romans had back in day when killing one's opponent in front of a large cheering crowd was in vogue. Sora usually had enough time to think, "Huh, this can't be good," when a tall man wearing a debatably fashionable trench coat materialized suddenly into the arena with a _pop_ and a lot of evil-sounding laughter. The man also happened to have one wing instead of one set of wings and very long silver hair that, for some reason or another, was more intimidating than the one wing and fashion-statement trench coat.

While Sora just sort of stood there observing this, the man would say something along the lines of "oh ho, shorty," and laugh derisively, to which Sora felt mostly indifferent to, as he sparred with Riku and co. on a regular basis and taunts were nothing new. But then, _then_, the man would do this hair flipping-over-the-shoulder thing. And then proceed to pulverize Sora with decidedly painful attacks.

At first, Sora woke up before the man could completely mop the floor with him. After awhile, though, Sora began to take the dream as a personal affront, and he would willfully stay in bed until he drifted off to sleep again, where he would try to defend himself against this man's attacks. Sometimes, he would even begin to get the upper hand, but then the man would do the hair flipping-over-the-shoulder technique again, and Sora would fall to his knees, utterly defeated.

This went on for quite some time until Sora was eight and he was sitting in the passenger side of his mother's car since he'd overslept and not only missed the school bus, but the fieldtrip bus that was supposed to take him to the bread factory. Sora had already been defeated in his dream that morning, but he fell asleep again with his forehead pressed up against the window anyway.

So there he was, in the arena on his knees while the man (whose name, he figured out by listening to the cheering crowd, was Sephiroth), smirked down at him and laughed evilly before disappearing.

And then, suddenly, Sora was standing in the cave only he, Riku and Kairi ever went to – the one with the random door stuck against the stone wall. But it was not Riku or Kairi he saw, but a tall figure dressed in a (decidedly _un_fashionable) tan brown coat from head to toe.

"Do you wish to defeat Sephiroth?" the figure asked in a cold voice.

"Heck yes," Sora replied, and then he covered his mouth because he used a bad word.

The figure didn't seem to mind, though it was hard to tell since his face was lost in shadow, but he continued the conversation.

"Then you must use..." he began, and here, the figure paused for dramatic effect, and also because he was fishing around in his pocket and couldn't seem to find whatever it was he was looking for.

"You must use... you must... use… aha! You must use... the Hair Gel of POWER!"

And with these words, he held out his hand and produced a sparkling bottle of blue hair gel with "Hair Gel of POWER!" written very obviously on the label.

"Rain-scented?" Sora asked, reading the smaller print on the label with squinted eyes.

"It also comes in blueberry muffin scent, too," the figure continued just as the car hit a bump in the road, and Sora bounced violently awake.

But you see, from that day on, Sora insisted on wearing hair gel, even to bed, because he was certain it would help him to finally be the victor in his battles against Sephiroth. Unfortunately, he no longer dreamed about the battles, and perhaps he would have never defeated Sephiroth until he met him in person in the waking world…

Part Two

Many years later, Sora had been adventuring through many different worlds and had dropped by the Olympus world on several occasions to compete in the different tournaments in the meantime. His most recent victory had been against Hurcules, who had been a lot of fun to fight since it involved throwing barrels. After that, two new challengers had appeared, but Sora wasn't supposed to know whom he was up against until he entered the ring. He chose the first of the two, the platinum cup, before waltzing back into the arena.

He was alone.

And then…

_Pop_.

"Bwa ha ha ha ha!"

"It's you!" Sora yelled, pointing and shaking his keyblade at the one and only Sephiroth. "I don't believe it!"

"Prepare yourself!" Sephiroth said, flipping his hair over his shoulder.

It was just like the dream! Sora staggered back a step, but gripped the keyblade in his hands.

"Oh, you're going down!" he said through gritted teeth.

Only, he didn't. At all. True, Sora was doing pretty okay for the first half of the fight, but then Sephiroth started flipping his hair right and left and... and it had been too much...

"You can always fight him again later," Kairi said reasonably when she and Sora met up together the next day. Sora had gone back to Traverse Town in order to pick up more supplies (as he'd used everything in the battle against Sephiroth), and Kairi had offered to take Sora out for burgers while Goofy and Donald practiced fighting tables and dish cabinets over at Merlin's place. They were now sitting at that café where the candles wouldn't stay put out for more than five seconds. It makes you wonder what kind of fire codes that town had.

"I know I can," Sora said, struggling to stir his milkshake with his straw. "But I don't want to fight him again. I want to _win_."

Kairi munched on some of Sora's fries thoughtfully, as she'd finished hers off already, and shook her head.

"No, they're just not as good," she sighed.

"What?" Sora asked, still angsting over his milkshake.

"These fries. They're not as good as the ones in Neverland," Kairi explained.

"There were fries there?" Sora asked, perking up a little with interest.

"Yes. There was one of those old-fashioned soda fountains in the brig. They made fries that were so good," she paused for a moment, staring into the distance with misty eyes. "And they're cheeseburgers… oh… out of this world…"

"But... weren't you... your heart wasn't..." Sora began.

"I still had to eat," Kairi said, now zeroing in on Sora's milkshake. "Are you going to finish that?"

"Uh, no. Take it," Sora said, pushing it across the table.

"Anyway, I wouldn't let this Sephiroth character bother you," Kairi said, testing the milkshake out. "Yum. Are you really sure you have to beat him in order to find Riku?"

"Uh... yes," Sora said, suddenly interested in the wall just above Kairi's head. "Definitely. No question about it."

"Well, I guess that's the way it goes, then, isn't it?" Kairi said. She downed the milkshake and set the now empty cup on the table.

"You want to go souvenir shopping with me?" she asked abruptly.

"Souvenir shopping?" Sora asked. "Who are you getting souvenirs for?"

"Selphie and Tidus and Wakka," she said as if stating the obvious. "I'd get something for Riku, too, since he was too busy being evil to look around much when he was here, but I'm still mad about the whole he-helped-Ansem-destroy-our-world incident, so tough cookies for him."

"Er, right," Sora said, feeling a little guilty that he was wasting so much time on a side quest instead of rescuing Riku. At the same time, it was comforting to know that Kairi wanted to buy souvenirs, because that meant she had confidence that they would still make it back to Destiny Islands somehow.

And so he agreed to go shopping with her, which really did prove to be a great distraction, and he wasted about 150 munny on a new jump-rope for Selphie and was thinking about getting Traverse Town Blitzball for Wakka when he spied a sparkly blue bottle on the shelf right next to it with the words "Hair Gel of POWER!" written very obviously on the label, with another obvious "NEW SCENT: BRISK AUTUMN BREEZE!" written under it.

"Ku ku ku..." Sora began in the likeness of evil anime villains.

"Beg pardon?" asked Kairi, who had wandered over after seeing the same Blitzball Sora had planned on getting.

"Ha ha ha… Ha ha ha! Bwa ha ha ha ha!" Sora laughed, taking the hair gel from the shelf and sprinting out the door. Kairi stared at his retreating form for a moment and then turned, bewildered, to the store cashier.

"What was that he took from the shelf?" she asked.

The cashier shrugged.

"Dunno," he said before adding, "But someone's got to pay for that."

Part Three

Donald and Goofy made their way through the crowd in the stadium, meaning they pushed their way to the front of the entrance hall where Phil had placed the TV that showed what was going down in the arena. Apparently, one of the spectators had gotten beaned on the head from the ice titan a few years ago and sued, so spectators were no longer allowed in the seating area.

On the tiny TV screen, which everyone was craning their necks and pushing to see, Sora walked into the arena and waited for the familiar _pop_ evil laughter he knew by heart by now. But this was the first time he wore a smug smile on his face. Before Sephiroth could begin with his usual taunt of the day, Sora held up a silencing hand.

"Behold," he said softly, reaching into his pocket. "Behold, the Hair Gel of POWER!"

The crowd surrounding the TV gasped.

"The what-what of what?" Goofy asked, looking down at Donald. Donald looked up Goofy and shrugged.

Sephiroth merely smiled and flipped his hair over his shoulder. Sora's smile only grew wider.

"Your ultimate attack will not work on me," Sora said confidently. "And now, you're really going down!"

And thus, Sora finally, _finally_ defeated Sephiroth.

Epilogue

But you may wonder, who had been that mysterious figure in the brown trench coat who had told Sora how to defeat Sephiroth?

Ansem was sprawled out on the beach working on his tan and waiting for Sora to show up. After spending so much time in the library at Hollow Bastion, it was quite nice to have a sunny vacation like this.

One may wonder why Ansem was so fond of the beach when he was also so obviously obsessed with darkness, too, but... well... there he was on the beach having a good time. He was thinking about maybe starting a seashell collection, only that would involve him standing up and looking for seashells, when one of his heartless minions came and sat down next to him. It was the kind that wore the spiffy blue armor and sort of loped around as oppose to ambled or skittered or floated.

"Oh, so Sephiroth was finally beaten?" Ansem asked it.

The heartless shrugged.

"You want to know why I helped the key wielder defeat him? Actually, it's quite simple…"

The heartless watched Ansem talking, but it looked as though it were doing this more out of politeness rather than any real interest.

"You see, there were far too many characters with white hair," Ansem elaborated, pushing a pair of sunglasses on his nose. "Now, I don't really care about Merlin or King Trident, because, to be honest, they're hair isn't nearly as nice as mine. Riku... well, I'm possessing him, and I think it's a rule somewhere that... are you paying attention?"

The heartless, who had been idly drawing "I (heartless) Blueberry Muffins" with a finger in the sand snapped to attention and nodded vigorously.

"Good," Ansem said, his eyes narrowing a moment before continuing. "I think it's a rule somewhere that there has to be some similarities between the villain and the… well, he's not actually the protagonist, is he?"

The heartless seemed to think about this, but before he could give his opinion on whether or not he agreed, Ansem continued.

"But Sephiroth... he isn't even a main character, but his hair is much better-looking than mine. No, he had to be destroyed."

The heartless was about to point out that being defeated in the coliseum wasn't actually being destroyed, unless you were a heartless, because Cloud and Squall (oh, excuse me, _Leon_) and Yuffie and Hercules had all been defeated, but they were all just fine afterwards, but Ansem stood up and stretched his arms over his head, so the heartless just sighed with exaggerated patience and stood up as well.

"Anyway, even with the Hair Gel of POWER, Sora won't be able to defeat me, because once he's opened the door and let out the darkness, he won't even be able to see me! Ha ha ha!"

The heartless gave Ansem a questioning look.

"Well, actually, I've got a flashlight with me, so I'll be just fine. And Maleficent helped me put pick out a nightlight for my room before, you know, we betrayed her and everything."

_Fin_

Disclaimer:

I wish I came up with the hair-flipping technique, but I actually got the idea from Final Fantasy Y. Er... used without permission. But I'll do free advertising! Go read FFY! Yes!


	3. all in good fun, really

I Heart Fangirl Service

Episode III:  
Omake Theatre

Two guys walk into a bar. One orders a martini; the other says, "Ow."

Meanwhile, on the other side of Traverse Town, Aerith and Yuffie have called a house meeting. Of course Leon attends, and for some reason or another, Cloud and Sephiroth also arrive, though this does not make sense given that Cloud only meets up with the other Final Fantasy game characters when they're all at Hollow Bastion, and Sephiroth is only ever at the coliseum, but…

Once everyone has sat down at the kitchen table, Yuffie hands out packets of papers stapled together at the top left-hand corner to each person before sitting down across from Aerith and between Cloud (to her right) and Sephiroth (who took it upon himself to sit at the head of the table (which means that Leon is sitting across from Cloud and next to Aerith)). The first fifteen-or-so minutes of the meeting are passed in silence as each person reads his or her papers. Aerith encourages everyone to write down their thoughts in the margins with the pens she has provided in the center of the table. Also on the table is a tall crystal pitcher full of pink lemonade, a ceramic sugar bowl full of sugar, and a stack of paper cups with daisy print. There would have been muffins, too, if Yuffie hadn't already nicked half of them while they cooled on the windowsill, and if Cloud hadn't wandered into the kitchen an hour later and absently scarfed down the rest. Squall, alias "Leon," had been very confused when he had gone back into the kitchen and found all of the muffins he'd baked that morning gone, and figured some troublesome little heartless had gotten a hold of them.

But I digress.

Yuffie was the last person to finish reading her packet, mostly because she'd been doodling ninja stars in the margins for no real reason.

"Why is it called _I Heart Fangirl Service_? There isn't any fangirl service in it at all," she said, folding her packet in half to hide her doodles before setting it on the table in front of her. Cloud and Leon, who had been playing thumb war across the table from each other, stopped with a quick glance at Aerith.

"What do you mean? Doesn't the first chapter have some?" Aerith asked, somewhat confused at Yuffie's statement.

Yuffie shook her head. "No it doesn't," she replied. "Riku didn't actually do anything."

"Well he..." Aerith began, then trailed off. "No, I guess not. That was Enrique."

"Yes," Yuffie nodded. "And nobody likes OCs anyway."

Sephiroth, who had been playing with the tips of his hair and idly wondering if he should risk losing evil points by sampling the pink lemonade, entered the conversation.

"The second chapter had fangirl service in it, though," he said.

"No it didn't," Yuffie and Aerith said in unison.

"But it had hair gel and fashion references and… well… me," Sephiroth stated, waving a hand in the air in a stately manner. Of course, this comment was greeted by glares from the two girls, but any indignant responses about sexism and/or Sephiroth's appeal (or lack thereof) were staved off by Cloud's quiet but distinctly firm voice.

"You're only fangirl service in the FFVII section of this site," he said, rather pointedly.

"Maybe I'll wander over there, then," Sephiroth said coldly, and with that, he stood up and left the room, leaving only Yuffie, Aerith, Cloud, and Leon still at the table. There was an awkward silence for a moment, which Cloud and Leon tried to ignore by pouring each other a paper cup of pink lemonade.

Aerith cleared her throat and started flipping her pen around her thumb.

"Anyway," she began, perhaps a bit apprehensively, "the reason Yuffie and I called this meeting today was in order to come up with the next chapter. We figured that since we're the grown ups in this story, we could actually come up with something serious and meaningful."

"Wait," Leon said abruptly, looking around the room as if noticing something for the first time. "Cid isn't here."

"Ah... no, he's not," Aerith said slowly. "He... uh..."

"When we told him what the meeting was about, he refused to show up," Yuffie scowled. "Something about a snowball's chance in hell he'd get involved in something like fangirl service."

Cloud and Leon exchanged glances. There was a thin line that had formed between Leon's eyebrows, a sign that something was bothering him, but Cloud shook his head minutely and shrugged. They appeared to silent conversation that was lost on Aerith and Yuffie.

Their silent conversation went as follows:

Leon: Fangirl service? Should we be worried about this?

Cloud: No idea. But this lemonade is lip-smacking good.

"Okay," Leon said, turning back to the girls. He seemed to struggle with himself for a moment, then his shoulders relaxed. "In this chapter, are we all from Hollow Bastion, is it an an alternate univers, or are we from our original games?"

Aerith smiled in approval at the question before her expression went thoughtful. Yuffie watched Cloud drink the lemonade with some suspicion before pouring a cup for herself.

"Bleh," she said to no one in particular when she tried it. "How can you drink this?"

"Add some sugar," Cloud said flatly, pushing the sugar bowl towards her.

"I suppose if we establish that we're from the original games," Aerith said, returning to the point of the meeting, "we'd have to explain why I'm still alive."

"We'd also have two Selphies," Yuffie added. The group collectively shuddered, except Aerith.

"I liked the Selphie in this game," she said. "She was cute. And the other Selphie is just... just..."

"Bat crazy?" Yuffie offered.

"No," Aerith amended. "Enthusiastic."

"I vote for the Hollow Bastion past," Cloud suggested firmly. "I angst enough as it is without having Aerith d..."

Cloud abruptly stopped talking and looked away from the table, gripping his paper cup rather hard so it crumpled and pink lemonade erupted out of it like so many third grade volcano science projects. Leon and Yuffie both politely took sudden interest in the daisy pattern on their own cups while Aerith reached diagonally over the table to place a reassuring hand on Cloud's arm. A minute passed, and Cloud turned back, eyes partially obscured by his hair, and nodded slightly. Aerith smiled sympathetically before standing up and heading towards the kitchen.

"I agree with Cloud," Leon said, ending the silence and tearing his eyes away from the cup. Daisy patterns should not be that interesting. "I'm a lot less likely to be self-destruction obsessed in the Kingdom Hearts fics than the FFVIII ones."

"Yes, self-destruction is Riku's job here," Yuffie said, nodding. "That's why he's so popular."

"... That's creepy," Aerith called from the kitchen.

"Tell me about it," Cloud and Leon said miserably in unison.

"Although there are a lot of Kairi-angst stories out there, too," Yuffie added.

"Kairi-angst?" Aerith asked, alarmed. A second later, she emerged from the kitchen with a hand towel, which she handed to Cloud distractedly before sitting down. Cloud immediately used it to mop up the pink lemonade waterfall that had been created earlier with his volcanic paper cup.

Leon shook his head.

"I can't see it. She's a strong young woman with a lot of determination and spirit. She's..." And here, Leon trailed off when he realized Aerith and Yuffie were giving him identical smiles.

"For a guy whose reputably angsty and loner-typish, you sure are verbose," Yuffie said.

"I am not angsty," Leon said heatedly. "Just because I think more than I talk doesn't make me angsty."

He glared at the girls as if daring them to contradict him.

"Okay, so we're sticking to the Hollow Bastion theory…" Aerith said breezily, writing this down in the margin of her packet with an exaggerated flourish, much to Leon's ire.

"Hold up," Yuffie said abruptly. "Fangirls like angst, and it would obviously be a lot easier to write it with our respective Final Fantasy games. We want girls with tears streaming down their faces."

"Original games it is," Aerith said, crossing off 'HB' from the margin.

"Well, they like fluff too, come to think of it," Yuffie amended. "We could stick with the Hollow Bastion past if we write fluff."

"Hollow Bastion," Aerith said, writing 'HB' again. "Okay, next point: we have to have a pairing. Heterosexual, homosexual, or both?"

"Boy-love!" Yuffie shouted quite loudly.

Leon choked on his cup of lemonade, and Yuffie had to get up and pat him on the back as he spluttered for a few moments. Cloud was decidedly less ruffled.

"I'm good with whatever," he said.

Leon waved Yuffie away irritably and continued coughing. Yuffie scowled and stuck her tongue out at him before sitting back at her seat with her arms crossed over her chest.

"Are you really?" Aerith asked Cloud.

Cloud nodded and shrugged.

"We should (cough cough) stick with just one (cough) couple, though," Leon said haltingly between coughs, "since it's (cough cough) only (cough) one chapter."

"Good point," Aerith said, making a note in the margin.

"Do you need some water?" Cloud asked.

"No, it's (cough) getting better."

"I think Leon and Cloud should be a couple," Yuffie said thoughtfully.

For exactly one instant, the room was completely silent.

"No," the two men said in unison.

"You said you were good with whatever!" Yuffie huffed indignantly towards Cloud.

"I am… except for that," Cloud said just as indignantly, pointing a thumb at Leon.

"Oh, thanks," Leon mumbled, but not quiet enough for Cloud not to hear.

"You said no, too," Cloud argued.

"I did," Leon said.

"See, you two are so alike," Yuffie said.

Leon and Cloud turned on her, Leon's eyes sparking and Cloud's eyes storming.

"No, we're not," they bit out in stereo.

"But you--"

"No," Leon and Cloud said forcibly.

"It's not like--"

Leon and Cloud stood up together, their chairs scraping against the floor in their haste.

"Right, right, okay," Yuffie said quickly, holding her hands up in surrender. "No Leon/Cloud slash bunnies. Got it."

Both men eyed her warily before sinking back into their respective seats.

"So which one of you is dating Riku, then?" Yuffie asked eagerly.

"What?" Cloud sputterd.

"He's fifteen!" Leon exclaimed.

"So?" Yuffie asked. "You're only seventeen."

"I'm turning eighteen!"

Aerith, who'd seemingly drifted off for a few minutes and making random notes on the back of her packet, perked up at Leon's words.

"Really? When?" she asked.

Leon muttered something that nobody could hear.

"What?" Yuffie asked, reaching across the table to prod Leon's arm. Leon snapped his arm away from the table and crossed it and his other arm across his chest.

"In seven months," Leon muttered, and then more intensely, "But I'm still not touching him. He's just a kid."

"And if Leon's too old, I'm way too old," Cloud agreed stoutly.

"Fine," Yuffie sighed in defeat. "So that knocks Sora off the list too, and I'm going to go ahead and cross Ansem off while we're at it, because there is no way in hell we're going to have a dark rape fic--"

"Thank you," Cloud and Leon said earnestly.

"—And Sephiroth is basically Ansem with cooler hair, only not since Episode II when he got a hold of that Hair Gel of Power or whatever, so he's gone... and since Cid has sworn to do some pretty painful stuff to us if we drag him into this fic... then... I guess we're doing a heterosexual relationship after all."

Leon shook his head.

"I don't think I should be involved in the pairing. I'm pretty sure..." he hedged for a moment, then continued, "that Rinoa would kill me."

"Not a Quall fan, apparently," Yuffie said to herself. Cloud, who heard Yuffie as she hadn't bothered to whisper, suddenly looked thoughtful.

"We're still doing the Hollow Bastion past," Aerith said helpfully.

"She'd still kill me," Leon said fearfully

"Do you really think so?" Aerith asked. "I think, depending on who it was, she would find it funny."

Leon shook his head. "I don't know... she's scary sometimes..."

"What do you mean?" Aerith asked.

Leon's eyes softened.

"Well, she's only gotten mad at me once when we first met, and she just yelled at me, but there was this one time she got on Irvine's case…"

"Quileon..." Cloud muttered to himself. "Lestis?"

And there was another moment of complete silence.

"Beg pardon?" Aerith asked as she and everyone else turned to look at Cloud.

Cloud leaned his elbow on the table and his chin in his hand and looked at Leon.

"You're Leon here, so I'm trying to come up with a pairings name for you and Quistis," he explained, "but they all suck."

The four Final Fantasy characters paused to think for a moment.

"Leonoa is pretty cool for you and Rinoa," Cloud said after some contemplation.

"What about Luffie?" Yuffie asked.

"Huh?" Leon and Cloud asked.

"Beats Cleon or Loud any day," Yuffie shrugged.

"Cleon or… oh," Cloud muttered to himself. Aerith's eyes suddenly lit up, and she starting writing furiously in her notes.

Cloud, Leon and Yuffie then spent about 10 minutes coming up with as many pairings names as they could: Soriku, Sokai, Kairiku, Soffie, Yuriku, Claerith, Aeriku, Leokai, etc. etc.

"Aeruffie," Yuffie said. "That one sounds the coolest so far."

"Maybe you two should--" Leon began, but he was interrupted by an intimidating sound from Cloud. Before Cloud could make any sort of threat, however, Aerith cried out in jubilation.

"Finished!" Aerith exclaimed, holding up her notes for everyone to see.

"What?" Yuffie asked, leaning over the table to see. "Oh, cool, let me see."

Without waiting for Aerith's ascent, she grabbed the packet from Aerith's hands and had just finished scanning over the first line when Leon reached over the table and grabbed it from her.

"Hey!" she exclaimed, standing up, but Cloud pulled her back down by the back of her shirt.

"Two men walk into a bar," Leon read, eyebrows furrowed. "One orders a martini and the other says, 'Ow.'" He paused, glanced up at Aerith, who was beaming, and looked down at the paper again. "... because he ran into a bar, like a pole or a pipe instead of a bar like a café or strip club... which is where the first man who ordered the martini went…."

"Give me that," Cloud said abruptly, taking the paper from Leon and scanning it over. He stopped, mouth in a small 'o' shape, and looked at Aerith, who was suddenly looking less sure. Yuffie made a sound of impatience and grabbed the paper from Cloud.

"Two men walk into a bar blah blah blah," Yuffie said quickly without punctuation. Then, more serenely: "But after the second man ran into the bar and said, 'Ow,' things suddenly became clear, and he realized that the person he had never paid that much attention to in the past was actually very dear to him. Nay, he loved that person! And so, with this new discovery, this man rushed to this person's home right away to tell this person about his love."

Aerith smiled nervously.

"I thought it could be AU, so we wouldn't have to worry about Hollow Bastion or the original games, and we wouldn't have to name any of the characters, and the only gender mentioned is that of the two men who each walk into a bar."

"I like it!" Yuffie said enthusiastically.

"Uh..." Leon hedged.

"It's... uh... it's..." Cloud began, then elbowed Yuffie's cup off the table and bent to clean up the mess.

"Wonderful!" Yuffie finished without irony.

"But which one of us will walk into the bar?" Leon asked, indicating himself and Cloud.

"I will," Cloud said reassuringly from under the table. "I'll order the martini, you say 'Ow.'"


	4. mary is my homegirl

­­I Heart Fangirl Service  
psychoanalyzing stuff since whenever

Bonus Episode:  
I am not a Mary Sue!

Marianne Suzette was walking home from school in an alternate reality where Disney and Square Enix didn't exist when she tripped over her way-cool elevator boots and fell into a black hole. We're not really sure where the black hole came from, nor why it was there at the corner of 51st and West Elm Street, but there it was.

Falling through the black hole was very much like falling through the rabbit hole in _Alice in Wonderland_ (Lewis Carol existed in Marianne Suzette's world, as did Hans Christian Anderson, A.A. Milne and J.M. Barrie) and Marianne Suzette, after she'd gotten over her initial shock, spent several bored minutes with empty air and the force of gravity. She played a few word games to keep herself occupied (Subject – food. Watermelo_n_, _n_oodle_s_, _s_andwhic_h,_ _h_alibut, etc.) until she hit the ground.

With her head.

It kind of hurt.

Getting up to her feet and rubbing the new bump on her head, she looked around and saw that she had landed on a floating bit of land between a boy with gravity-defying hair and another boy who looked majorly ticked off.

"What are you doing here?" Riku asked. He was the one who looked like he wanted to hit something and like he was possibly channeling the spirit of something decidedly malevolent, icky, and loquacious.

"Uh," Marianne Suzette began, but before she could continue, Sora interrupted her.

"Bonus video?" Sora guessed.

"How do you get the bonus video!" asked a crowd of Kingdom Hearts fanatics.

"You can unlock this special bonus video by running around in circles in the collesium for five hours without getting hit by the Ice Titan," replied a mean person with nothing better to do.

"All right!" cheered a sadly high percentage of gullible Kingdom Hearts fanatics.

"I am slightly suspicious of this information," said everyone else except Marianne Suzette, Sora and Riku, who weren't privy to any of the conversation that took place after Marianne Suzette said, "Uh" because Sora didn't remember saying, "Bonus video?" and Riku promptly forgot it because it was gibberish and Marianne Suzette was still trying to acclimate herself to the environment: a floating island! What the muffins!

"Oh," Riku said, his face full of the look of dawning comprehension. "You're a Mary Sue!"

"No, I'm not," Marianne Suzette said defensively. "I'm Marianne Suzette."

"Definitely a Mary Sue," Riku nodded sagely. "Only Mary Sues deny their Mary Suism."

"What are you talking about?" Sora asked.

Riku sort of stared into the middle distance for a moment, trying to figure out what he'd just said. Then he remembered he was mad at Sora.

"That's right, you don't care about Kairi! I've been trying to save her while you've been running around playing hero!"

Sora flushed red.

"Was not! I've been looking for you and Kairi, and you'd know that if you stopped running away all the time, you jerk!"

"Jerk!" Riku repeated, highly affronted. "Well, you're a meany-head!"

"I am not a…!" Sora began in righteous anger, but stopped short. His mouth opened in horror, and he mouthed a few choice words soundlessly before he found his voice. "Meany-head? What the… Riku, that sucked. You're supposed to be the more eloquent of us two."

Riku flicked back his hair from his shoulder.

"This game is rated ten and up," Riku said scathingly, but Sora could tell Riku was embarrassed.

Meanwhile, Marianne Suzette had wandered to the far corner of the floating island and was now brooding to herself.

"I feel ignored and unloved," she said to no one in particular.

"Ah, so you finally made it," Riku said to Sora, deciding that since his dramatic monologue had been interrupted earlier, he should start again. Sora, thinking that the beginning of Riku's monologue really had been quite dramatic and eloquent, though maybe a little confusing, didn't mind listening to it again.

"About time," Riku continued in a bland tone that revealed his Hate and Darkness. "I've been waiting for you. We've always been rivals, haven't we? You've always pushed me, as I've always pushed you."

"Riku…" Sora began sadly.

Thinking that Sora was going to interrupt his monologue, Riku hurried on. He'd been working on this darn speech ever since Traverse Town, had even gotten Maleficent to edit it for him ("An understated taunt, questioning the hero's motives, creating a parallel between yourself and your enemy… quite brilliant. Ready to be possessed by darkness yet?"), and Sora was going to hear the rest of it.

"But it all ends here. There can't be two keyblade masters!"

Okay, so there wasn't much left to the speech, but still…

Sora was obviously not understanding the brilliance of Riku's writing, however.

"What are you talking about?" he asked, much to Riku's annoyance. Then Riku remembered he was so much better than Sora, so of course Sora wouldn't have recognize the awesomeness that was Riku's monologue. Tch. Stupid Sora had been running around playing hero while Kairi…

"Let the keyblade choose it's true master!" Riku shouted. At that instant, Sora felt the keyblade tug away from his hand.

"Wh-what's going on?" he asked, and as if to promptly reply to Sora's question, the keyblade vanished from his grip, only instead of the keyblade magically appearing in Riku's hand, like it usually does whenever one plays the game, the keyblade popped into Marianne Suzette's unsuspecting hands.

"Huh," Sora and Riku said simultaneously, both trying to figure out what had just happened.

"Oh, bugger," Riku said. "I get it now. She's a Mary Sue."

He'd forgotten he'd already figured it out earlier.

"Oh!" Sora exclaimed, quite forgetting that Riku had figured it out already, too, as well as forgetting his and Riku's earlier argument. "That explains it, then."

Marianne Suzette, who was happy that she wasn't being ignored anymore and thought the whole disappearing-reappearing act was pretty darn cool, only said, "It's Marianne Suzette," in a distracted sort of way.

"No, a Mary Sue," Riku insisted. "You're nice, right?"

Marianne Suzette nodded, spinning the giant key in her hand.

"And smart?" Sora asked.

Again, Marianne Suzette nodded and tossed the keyblade in the air.

"Talented at anything you put your mind to?" Riku added.

Nod. Catch.

"And you're very pretty," Sora said.

"Thank you," Marianne Suzette replied easily, because she knew she was pretty, but she couldn't really take credit for it.

"Good sense of humor?" Riku continued.

Marianne Suzette paused, trying to come up with something witty for that, but shrugged and nodded again and held the keyblade out, testing its balance.

"You're nice, smart, talented, pretty, and funny, but..." and here, Sora paused dramatically "Despite your cheery exterior, you have a terrible past..."

"Ye- wait, what?" Marianne Suzette asked, almost dropping the keyblade.

"Something terrible happened to you in the distant or fairly recent past," Riku explained, "and it has caused you terrible pain, and you've since had to wear a mask of forced cheer in fear that someone would find out about this terrible secret."

"I'm not -- " Marianne Suzette began, but she was interrupted by Sora.

"Although everyone seems to like you, there isn't anybody you feel close to, and indeed, the few people you trusted soon took advantage of your kindness, your talent, your quiet nature…"

"Actually, my friends haven't ever --"

"And now you're in a foreign land with foreign people, unsure of how you got here," Riku continued over Marianne Suzette's voice.

"No, the black hole was -- "

"And now that you're here, you will most likely hook up with one of the more good-looking, brooding sort of characters and help him realize that he's really a good person, in his heart of hearts, while at the same time fall madly in love with him, and he you, but only if it weren't for that terrible secret," Sora spoke loudly before Marianne had a chance to finish.

"Look, I feel like you're not listen--"

"But you can't fall for Sora, because his heart is promised to Kairi," Riku said quite seriously.

"Unless the writer hooks me up with Riku, in which case you're ruining our current argument fraught with sexual tension by being here," Sora added.

"Or if the writer has Sora pining away after Squall…"

"It's Leon!" interrupted a faraway voice located somewhere in Traverse Town.

"…Yuffie, Cloud or Ansem," Riku continued as if he hadn't heard the faraway voice in Traverse Town, and considering he, Sora and Marianne Suzette were in Hollow Bastion, Riku probably hadn't.

"No, Ansem is yours," Sora said, "and you're sometimes hooked up with Sephiroth, too."

"Nobody seems to like Cid, though," Riku said thoughtfully.

"I know. I wonder why nobody really seems to like Aerith, either," Sora added.

"And nobody likes the Disney characters," Riku tacked on. "I mean, okay, I'm not complaining – as in I'm definitely not complaining, but nobody really mentions them. Take this fanfiction, for example. Aren't Donald and Goofy supposed to be in this scene?"

"We're over here!" Goofy and Donald said simultaneously. They were playing a word game (subject – animals. Duc_k_, ­_k_oala bea_r_, _r_accoon., etc.) to pass the time until their dramatic part of the cinematic came up, which at the pace it was going now, wasn't likely to happen anytime soon. The Beast was also hanging out in the background, too, but since Riku had laid the smackdown on him earlier, he wasn't up to playing games and was brooding by himself.

"I'm worried about what will happen to us when Kingdom Hearts 2 comes out," Sora said fearfully. "Who knows what kind of wacky relationships and plots we'll get into then."

"Kingdom Hearts 2 _is_ already out," Riku said despairingly.

"Oh, the horror!" Sora said in manner that was quite uncharacteristic of him.

"I feel ignored again," Marianne Suzette said to Donald and Goofy, and they were much more sympathetic and would have invited her into their word game if Sora and Riku hadn't just noticed her for the third time.

"Look, a Mary Sue," Sora said.

"I am not a Mary Sue!" Marianne Suzette exploded, much to Riku and Sora's surprise. "I am a character who shares certain traits with the writer who, because she is probably at the age where playing make-believe is no longer socially acceptable, writes so she can live vicariously through me in order to symbolically celebrate the traits she likes in herself and improve or change the traits she doesn't like. She also often hooks me up with canon characters she feels an attraction to or emotional connection with in order to – holy muffins!" Marianne Suzette interrupted herself. "I _am_ a Mary Sue."

Sora shook his head sympathetically.

"It's okay, you've been fairly entertaining so far, otherwise the reader wouldn't have read this far into the chapter."

"What do you mean, 'it's okay'? It's awesome!" Marianne Suzette said enthusiastically. "I'm a manifestation of someone's hopes and desires and first steps to becoming an awesome blossom writer! This rocks my socks!"

Riku and Sora exchanged glances. Riku shrugged.

"Look, can I have that keyblade?" Riku asked, and without thinking, Marianne Suzette tossed it over to him, and he caught it easily.

Before anything else could happen, a black hole appeared out of nowhere!

Well, actually, a little yellow taxi had driven up onto the bit of floating island and stopped between Marianne Suzette, Riku and Sora. The black hole had stepped out of the taxi, and the taxi drove off. What we're not sure of is how the little yellow taxi got there, where it ended up, or how the black hole had managed to pay its fare.

Marianne Suzette was about to jump into the black hole again, seeing as how falling into the first black hole had gotten her here, but then Marianne Suzette realized that this logic wasn't actually very sound, and if she were to jump into _this_ black hole there'd be no telling where she may wind up – the North Pole or _Pride and Prejudice­_ or any number of places that wasn't 51st and West Elm Street. Unfortunately, in an attempt to step away from the black hole, she tripped over her way cool elevator boots and fell in anyway.

"Yay! I'm back!" she said excitedly to the lamppost on the corner of 51st and West Elm Street.

Meanwhile, back at Hallow Bastion, Riku and Sora were trying continue the already over-extended cinematic.

"Why were we arguing again?" Riku asked.

"I think it was because I don't care about Kairi, and you're a jerk, only I think Kairi is the cat's meow, and you aren't a jerk, you're just worried about Kairi and angry at me because you wanted to protect me too but to you're utter amazement I was able to take care of myself without you which made you feel insecure because if I didn't need your guidance then you thought maybe I didn't need you at all -- " and here, Sora took a big breath because he had forgotten about commas somewhere in there and so had to add a couple of dashes and a big breath to indicate a pause in his monologue, "or something like that."

"Oh," Riku said. "That's right. Shall we continue?"

"Oh, but of course," Sora replied graciously. "Lay on, MacDuff."


	5. heartless money

I Heart Fangirl Service  
_The Case of the Heartless' Money_

"You know," Sora said to Donald and Goofy one idle afternoon. "I've been wondering... why do Heartless carry around so much munny?"

"Huh?" Donald asked. Usually, he gave Sora the benifit of the doubt. Sora was a good kid, no question. Sometimes, though, like now, Sora would come up with these questions that had nothing to do with anything.

"Gawrsh, what do you mean, Sora?" Goofy asked. Of course, Goofy _would _also be interested, Donald thought.

"I mean," Sora continued thoughtfully, "When you defeat a Heartless and it dissappears, it leaves behind, among other random things, a whole lot of munny. Where do they get it, and why do they carry it around? What's the point?"

------

Meanwhile, in the empty, echoing halls of Hollow Bastion's castle, Malefecent was sending another troupe of Heartless to Traverse Town. Riku was somewhere, but it wasn't really that important where at the moment.

"Now here's your lunch munny," Malefecent said, passing a smallish coin purse with a Heartless Hello Kitty insignia on the back to the most responsible-looking Heartless of the group. "And I want you to get something _healthy_. No more of that seasalt ice pop nonsense, you hear?"


	6. members only

I Heart Fangirl Service  
Please allow 6-8 weeks for delivery.

Episode 6  
Members Only

Part I  
_Organization XIII Gets a Package_

Demyx was beginning to suspect the other members of Organization XIII did not trust him with the big, important missions. Take now, for example. While Vexen and company were setting up things in Castle Oblivion for Sora's arrival (as well as Marluxia's surprise unbirthday party), Demyx had been charged by Xemnas himself to wait here in the Castle of Naught for a very important package in the mail.

Although this particular mission gave Demyx plenty of time to work on the script of his aspiring musical, _Roxas and Roll_, Demyx knew perfectly well that because the Castle of Naught technically didn't exist, and since places that technically don't exist generally don't have mailing addresses, especialy since said place was on a world that was called the World That Never Was (and, for all intent and purposes, Still Isn't and Never Will Be), the postman hadn't come, and would probably never come.

And then, despite all logic, the postman arrived at the castle with a small cardboard box in hand. This happened on Friday. It was also rather impressive that the postman got to the door, considering the bottomless chasm between it and the city surrounding it.

"I found it!" the postman said to Demyx as Demyx answered the ridiculously large door of the castle.

"Yes, you did," Demyx agreed.

"They told me there was no such place as the World That Never Was, but I kept looking!" the postman continued rather animatedly. " 'I have never not delivered a package before,' I said to them, 'and I will never not deliver one now!' I said. And here I am in a place that never was, and I have delivered the package to Nobody like it says on the roster, so if you would please sign here…"

As soon as Demyx signed the receipt, the postman turned around to contemplate how he was going to get back home. How the postman eventually got back was all very epic and adventerous and involved several flying cosmic giraffes, but it has nothing to do with the story, so we'll skip it.

Meanwhile, Demyx carried the package inside and closed the ridiculously large door behind him with his foot. As is the case with packages from the mail, the one Demyx held was a nondescript cardboard box with bangs and dents in the corners despite the large, torn white sticker that said FRAGI-.

Later in the evening, Xemnas and Xigbar returned early from Castle Oblivion. The other members were still in the middle celebrating Marluxia's surprise unbirthday party, but Xemnas had only gone to make sure no one was about to throw a coup any time soon, and Xigbar had only really gone for the cake, and that is why the two didn't stay longer. They found Demyx sitting on the floor of one of the many ridiculously large, empty halls of the castle of Naught.

Demyx was not, as you may have guessed, playing the sitar when they found him. He has other hobbies, you know? Oh no, you just assumed he played music when he wasn't doing bad-guy things. Well, he has whole myriad of interests besides music, and it just so happened that right at that moment, Demyx was trying to come up with the solution for a very complicated mathmatical algorithm concerning the aerodynamic qualities of different hair gels.

Unfortunately, the importance of Demyx's musing were not appreciated by Xemnas and Xigbar who only saw that Demyx was writing this problem longhand with the package as a makeshift desk.

"Give it here," Xigbar said rather menacingly, and since Demyx was the sort of person… er… Nobody who couldn't deal with bullies, Demyx did so with a little squeak before diving behind the nearest cover, which happened to be Xemnas.

Completely unperturbed by Demyx's odd behavior, Xigbar held the box in place while Xemnas pulled the packing tape off. Demyx, who was growning more curious than afraid now that he had a human shield, peeked over Xemnas' shoulder to see what was inside.

"They got it wrong," Xemnas said rather placidly. He pulled out a plaque of gunmetal gray from the box. Several packaging peanuts stuck to the face through static electricity, but Demyx could see "ORGANIZATION 13" plainly written on its face.

Xemnas turned the plate around so Xigbar could see the mistake, but Xigbar's expression was blank.

"What's wrong with it?" asked Xigbar, and Xemnas sighed as though Xigbar were the stupidest person existence. Stupidest Nobody, I mean. In inexistence. Xemnas sighed as though Xigbar were stupidest Nobody in inexistence.

"First of all, I specifically requested Heltivetica and not Arial," Xemnas replied patiently, "and furthermore, I wanted 13 to be written in Roman numerals."

"Oh," Xigbar said. "What's the difference?"

"Would you like me to go over last week's meeting again?" Xemnas said. "We spent three hours debating the difference between Roman and Arabic numerals, and this was after Larxene's thirty-minute advocacy of Mayan symbols. Were you not paying attention?"

Xigbar looked up at the ceiling and scratched the back of his head carelessly, which obviously meant he hadn't been paying attention in the slightest.

"Shouldn't it be Organization 14?" Demyx asked from behind Xemnas.

"What?" Xemnas and Xigbar asked simultaneously, turning on Demyx.

"Well, we have fourteen members, don't we?" Demyx asked.

Xemnas and Xigbar stared at Demyx for a moment, then exchanged glances.

"You me and him make three," Xigbar said, holding up three fingers.

"Larxene, Axel and Vexen," Xemnas thought aloud, and Xigbar kept track by counting off on the rest of his fingers and thumbs.

"Plus Marluxia and Saix," Demyx added helpfully.

"Xaldin and Lexaeus."

"Luxord and Saix."

And the new kid, Roxas."

Xemnas, Xigbar and Demyx stood in a circle and looked thoughtfully at Xigbar's fingers, of which there were only ten.

"How many was that?" Xigbar applied to the other Nobodies.

"Thirteen," Xemnas replied, and if there was a hint of righteous I-told-you-so in his voice, it was simply a trick of the echoing hallway.

"And Namine," Demyx remembered suddenly.

"Fourteen," Xigbar concluded.

The hall was very silent. Just to be on the safe side, Demyx and Xigbar both recounted the names silently to themselves on their fingers. Xemnas, Xigbar, Xaldin, Demyx, Larxene, Luxord, Lexaeus, Saix, Axel, Vexen, Zexion, Marluxia, Roxas, Namine. Yep. Fourteen members and not thirteen.

"We'll just ave to kill one of the members off, then," Xemnas said carelessly.

Part 2  
_Organization XIII Holds Another Meeting_

Somehow, as is always the case with meetings, someone missed the notice being passed around, and this time, it happened to be Roxas. He was wandering by himself on the first floor trying to figure out where everyone had got to.

Well, Roxas never knew what was going on anyway, so this was nothing new.

Meanwhile, at the very top floor, it was decided that it was Saix's turn to be spokesperson for the day, which meant he was in charge of who got to hold Mr. Poohbah, the moogle plushie.

"It has come to our attention," said Saix placidly, "That there is one too many members of the Organization."

All members present quickly and discreetly glanced around at each other, each counting the number of people present plus Roxas (where was he, anyway?) in their heads and realizing, for the first time, that there were indeed fourteen Nobodies instead of just thirteen like they had always assumed.

Larxene, who was sitting at what would be the opposite side of the table from Saix had there been a table, raised her hand. The only furniture in the Castle of Naught were a set of mismatched chairs of varying height that Luxord had won in a world called Las Vegas, but those chairs turned out to be quite impractical for meetings as some members found themselves talking either over each other's heads or at another person's knees, so meetings had been moved to the hallway outside. Xemnas had indicated an imaginary table where he sat each of his members in no particular order along its imaginary edge. Xemnas, of course, got to sit at the head.

"Yes?" Saix said, indicting that Larxene could take the floor by passing her the moogle plushie.

"I move that Namine be excommunicated from the Organization," Larxene said.

"Seconded," Namine agreed eagerly, but as she was usually so very shy and wasn't holding the moogle plushie, nobody paid her any mind. Instead, Xemnas raised his hand, and Saix passed the moogle plushie from Larxene to Xemnas.

"Why do you say that?" Xemnas asked Larxene.

Saix took the plushie and gave it back to Larxene.

"Because she doesn't have an 'X' in her name," Larxene said decidedly. On either side of her, Xigbar and Vexen nodded solemnly, and to the right of Marluxia, Zexion seemed to ponder this before seeming to agree with its logic.

"All in favor of removing Namine from the Organization, say 'aye,' " Saix said once he had hold of the plushie again.

"Aye," said eleven of the thirteen present.

"All opposed?" Saix asked.

Silence.

"All obstaining?"

Lexeaus held up a hand and Axel shrugged indifferently.

"Sorry, Namine," Xemnas said without sounding sorry at all.

"That's fine," Namine said, sounding as if it really were just fine. "Can I leave?"

Larxene snatched the moogle plushie away from Saix and shook it in front Namine's face.

"No talking unless you have Mr. Poohbah!" she said defensively. Namine gave a sad little sigh and looked adorably pitiful, but obedientaly didn't say anything more. Marluxia, however, raised his hand and looked at Larxene expectantly until she reluctantly passed Mr. Poohbah over to him.

"I move that we open the discussion on the interior decorating of the Castle of Naught again," Marluxia said.

"Oh no," mumbled someone.

"Not again," muttered someone else.

"Mr. Poohbah!" Larxene hissed under her breath indignantly, which shut them both up.

Saix pulled Mr. Poohbah back from Marluxia and handed it to Xemnas even though Vexen raised his hand first.

"We already voted to stick with the white-and-gray neutrals," Xemnas said. "It's not my fault no one voted for your idea."

"But we --" Marluxia began, then stopped short and held out his hand impatiently. Xemnas seemed reluctant to hand Mr. Poohbah over, but Saix gave him the _look_ (you know the one. No, not that one. The _scary_ one. Yep, that's it.), so he did.

"We didn't get to go over _everyone's_ ideas," Marluxia continued defiantly. "We only went over yours and Axel's, and Axel wasn't being serious anyway, and then you said we were running over time and we had to decide between those two. It's not fair!"

"It doesn't matter. We already voted," Xemnas said again.

"But it's not fair," Marluxia insisted. "You cheated! And your idea stinks!"

"We already voted, and you lost, and that's final! Meeting adjourned!" Xemnas said, and if he had been anyone else, he may have stuck out his tongue.

"We don't even have furniture!" Marluxia shouted.

"Meeting adjourned! I'm not listening to you!"

And that was when Marluxia decided to throw the coup d'et taut.


	7. name game 1

I Heart Fangirl Service  
We could sing a song about it.  
Ready? Go!

* * *

Oh, the wonderful world of fangirls!  
Where we are made of sugar and spice  
And where we 're prob'ly more naughty than nice  
And the lovers of whom we like to pair  
Are bishonen plural, if we dare  
(though we're more likely to get slammed for writing canon relationships  
and, heaven forbid, pretty girl love and,  
blasphemy! havin' the unpretty people of the game having any sort of romance.  
I mean, like, we can't have that, now can we?).  
Ah! The wonderful world of fangirls!

* * *

Episode 7:  
A Rose by Any Other Name, yo 

Squall, alias Leon, was hiding.

Just to be clear, Leon was not hiding from Heartless, who were quite easily taken down with one well-aimed _whack!_, nor was he hiding from the Nobodies, who were just as easily defeated with one well-timed _swish-clang!_ and/or button mashing on the triangle button. No, Leon was hiding from --

"Leon!"

-- from Aeris, alias Aerith, because Aerith had just made a pitcher of barley tea, and she probably put milk in it, because she always put milk in it, and Leon hated milk with the fiery passion of one thousand suns and possibly one angry magic-wielding duck; but of course he didn't say, "No! I shall have none of your tea!" to Aerith, because would-you-like-tea-with-you-milk Aerith inspired tact and diplomacy and not necessarily blunt honesty.

And so Leon was hiding.

There were a great many places to hide in Radiant Garden, alias Hollow Bastion. This place, for example. Leon was currently hiding in Cid's garage, where Cid kept his collection of gummi ships, gummi blocks, and a secret stash of gummi bears (upon which Leon was idly snacking). Wonderful hiding place – no one would suspect.

"Leon?" Aerith called again.

Leon heard Aerith's footsteps shuffling through the entrance of the garage, which was odd considering that Aerith didn't generally shuffle. Aerith sort of waltzed and glided, and even meandered every once in a while. Cloud was more of the shuffling type, especially since he got those spiffy new boots with the clunky heels. Yuffie shuffled, too, and bounced and pranced and generally made a lot of noise for a ninja. Cid clunked around, Tifa might canter or saunter depending on her mood, and Merlin boogied.

(It should be noted that Leon, alias Squall, did _not_ shuffle, waltz, glide, meander, bounce, prance, clunk, canter, or saunter, and he definitely did not boogie. No, Leon _walked_. If he absolutely had to change his gait, then he might make strides, but that was as far as other synonyms would take him. But of course, as he was hiding and therefore stationary, none of that matters at the moment.)

"Are you sure you saw him come in here?" Aerith asked in a conversational tone.

"Of course!" Yuffie said, establishing her character introduction to the scene and indication that it was she who owned the shuffling footsteps and not Aerith, who was currently gliding. Yuffie said, "Of course!" in such away, moreover, to indicate to Leon that she knew that Leon was hiding in here and she knew that Leon knew that she knew, and Yuffie wanted Leon to know that she knew. That is to say, Yuffie said, "Of course!" with a certain evil glee that was totally lost on Aerith but not on Leon.

You see, Cid's garage was a wonderful hiding place with the exception that Yuffie was the only other person who knew of its existence as Leon's hiding place. While Leon knew he could trust Yuffie to not tell anyone else about it, the only reason she wouldn't tell anyone was if she were making some sort of profit from not-telling. In short – blackmail. Leon, however, refused to call her Great Ninja Yuffie. Ther were enough aliases already, and that wasn't even counting the DiZ/Ansem/Riku/Xehanort('s Heartless)/Xemnas fiasco of big-mushy-confusingness. (Yeah, I said it. What, then?)

Leon shifted in his hiding place so he could see the two women but so they still couldn't see him. Aerith was looking around while Yuffie swept a loose and lost gummi block up from the floor. She tossed it once into the air and caught it, the turned her head to stare straight at the point where a stack of crates had been stacked against the East wall.

"Hey, is that him over there?" Yuffie asked suddenelly, pointing North.

"Where?" Aerith asked, whipping around to look in the general direction of North. With her back turned, Yuffie threw the gummi block as hard as she could at the crates.

And nothing happened. Knowing that Yuffie was bound to come after him when he didn't call her by her self-given moniker, he had pre-empted her attack by hiding behind the crates on the _West_ wall.

"Ouch!" Leon cried suddenly.

Behind the low stack of crates of his now-useless hiding place, Leon jumped to his feet and rubbed the forming bump where Yuffie's gummi block had hit him on the top of his head. You see, although Yuffie had thrown the gummi block completely in the wrong direction, it had bounced off the floor and up against the wall, then up into the ceiling where it pinballed through the rafters before ricocheting straight down on Leon from overhead. Gummi blocks are amazingly bouncy, you know. They also hurt when they hit one's forehead.

Yuffie and Aerith, alarmed by the sudden voice, both turned simultaneously to find that Leon had miraculously appeared out of nowhere. For a few seconds, Leon pretended he hadn't yet noticed the two women by paying particular attention to the bump on his poor injured forehead. Obviously, though, now that they knew he was here… and more to the point, now that they were staring straight at him, it was kind of obvious he couldn't pretend to continue to not notice them.

Leon stopped rubbing his forehead and rested his hands at his sides. The two women stared at him.

"Hello," Aerith said after a moment of silence.

"Hey," Leon said.

There was another brief silence.

"What are you doing in here?" Yuffie asked innocently.

"I was looking for something," Leon said defensively.

"For what?" Aerith asked helpfully.

Leon's eyes flicked from side to side. Then, as if suddenly aware that he held something in his hand, he held it up for Aerith and Yuffie to see. It was the gummi block Yuffie had thrown earlier.

"For this," he said.

Yuffie narrowed her eyes at Leon, but Aerith nodded like it made perfect sense.

"And now I'll be going," Leon said before Aerith could remember her original intent of entering the gummi garage. He had just jumped over the crates and was making good time to the exit when Aerith clapped her hands together.

"Ah, that's right!" she said brightly. "I just made some tea. Do you want any, Leon?"

"Noyaimeansure. Okay," Leon said quickly and in one breath.

Dangit. Well, maybe there would be muffins, too.


	8. name game 2

I Heart Fangirl Service  
Delivery hours now include weekends.

Episode 8:  
A Conversation Among Friends

"Okay, so let me get this straight," Kairi said as she and Riku and Sora all walked home from school. "Ansem the Wise is also DiZ, which is short for Dressed in Zero."

"That's Darkness in Zero," Riku corrected, "but yes."

Although it was monsoon season, the weather was presently pleasantly clear of threatening clouds. Nonetheless, Kairi had a compact umbrella tied around her wrist, and it swung back and forth incongruently with her arm swinging back and forth as she walked. Riku, who didn't bother with umbrellas because the wind usually turned them inside-out, wished he hadn't so carelessly tossed away that black trench coat with various zippers back in the Castle of Naught. It had been wonderfully water-resistant.

"Right, like I said," Kairi agreed. "And Xehanort, who worked for Ansem, stole Ansem's name."

"Yes…?" Sora said with great confidence, looking over at Riku for confirmation. Sora didn't bother with umbrellas or raincoats, because he learned all sorts of crazy impractical spells on his adventure like Reflect and Aeroga, which protected him from getting hit by Heartless, Nobodies, and, he discovered one day by accident, rain.

"Yes," Riku said decisively.

"Okay, so there's DiZ, who is really Ansem, and Ansem, who is really Xehanort," Kairi established.

"Uh…" said Sora.

"Right," said Riku.

"And then Ansem, who is really Xehanort, became a Heartless," Kairi continued.

"Uh huh," said Riku.

"Which also created his Nobody, who named himself Xemnas."

Kairi paused here, switched her book bag from one hand to the other, and continued.

"So we have DiZ, Xehanort's Heartless, and Xemnas," she said.

Riku and Sora nodded.

"Wait, what?" Sora asked, changing his mind on the nodding thing.

Here, the three friends stopped at the corner of the block, as the light in front of them had turned red, and the little orange palm of the DON'T WALK sign was blinking at them.

"We have DiZ, who is really Ansem the Wise, and the two creations formed by Xehanort: his Heartless, who called himself Ansem, and his Nobody, who called himself Xemnas," Riku explained.

"… Right," Sora said, looking hard at the ground, arms crossed over his chest. Standing to his right, Kairi idly scratched the side of her nose and stared at the DON'T WALK sign as she hashed the information provided so far. Riku's expression was that of patient concentration as he wondered where he might be able to find another trench coat similar to the one he and half of the human population of Kingdom Hearts II wore. After a minute, the walking stick person lit up, and the three friends crossed the street.

"But then Sora defeated Ansem, who was really Xehanort's Heartless, which left you, Xemnas and DiZ, who is really Ansem," Kairi resumed as they stepped onto the next curb.

"That's right," Riku nodded, and then, because Sora was lost in thought and not paying attention to his feet, Riku instinctively reached a hand out and grabbed his arm just after Sora tripped over the curb and before his nose met concrete.

"And then you called yourself Ansem and started working with Ansem, who called himself DiZ," Kairi said, completely unaware that Sora's nose had been milliseconds away from mortal peril via sidewalk as she was walking slightly ahead of the two boys. Riku, once Sora had balanced himself, dropped his hand from Sora's arm, and the two boys jogged to catch up with Kairi.

"Yep," Riku nodded again, putting his hands into the pockets of his pants. Sora let his eyes drift and looked helplessly up at the sky above.

"So there's Ansem, who is Riku, and DiZ, who is Ansem, and Xemnas who is Xehanort's Nobody and not his Heartless, 'cuz his Heartless is out of the picture now, even though Riku looked just like him," Kairi said to herself.

At this point, Sora zoned out of the conversation.

"And the DiZ disappeared when that machine exploded, and we got Riku back into his original body and name, and then you two defeated Xemnas, so… that's it?" Kairi asked, directing the final question to Riku.

"You got it," Riku said. "Not that complicated, see?"

Kairi nodded and grinned as Sora continued to stare up at the sky, still ignoring the conversation and completely unaware he was fast approaching a stiff and unyielding stop sign directly in front of him. This time, Riku decided to let Sora fend for himself. It was a harsh and wild world, the world of Suburb, Destiny Island.

"Yeah, you're right. It wasn't that hard," Kairi agreed.


	9. name game 3

I Heart Fangirl Service  
What's in a Name?

"Heartless aren't actually heartless," Sora said abruptly over a cup of barley tea. He and Kairi and Riku were having a Fun Fun Tea Party on the beach. (They had invited Wakka, but he wasn't able to make it, because he had a cold.) Like Aerith, Kairi liked her tea with a lot of milk; like Wakka, Riku liked his with a lot of sweetener; and unlike either Aerith or Wakka or Kairi or Riku, Sora liked his barley tea black. Kairi also brought along apple and cheese slices in an attempt to promote healthy diets to the reader.

Kairi considered Sora's statement for a moment before nodding.

"You're right," she agreed. "Heartless are the darkness in people's hearts, so technically 'Heartless' are actually 'The Fraction of a Person's Heart that is Darkness.' " Here, Kairi made a fist and thumped it into the open palm of her other hand and added, "It's Nobodies who don't actually have hearts."

"So shouldn't Nobodies be called Heartless?" Sora asked.

"In theory, yes." Riku answered. "In practice, no."

As he said this, Riku carefully inspected the apple slices with some suspicion. He had, in his world-destroying stage, been involved in a sinister plot against a princess whose hair was as black as a raven's wing, and the sinister plot had involved one poisoned apple. He didn't completely trust apples anymore.

"And one other thing," Sora added, not noticing that Riku had lost interest in the apples and was now exchanging what would best be described as 'mischievous glances' with Kairi. Kairi winked at the sugar bowl, and Riku shrugged and nodded and was now surreptitiously pouring about half a bowl of sugar into Sora's cup of tea.

"If something is created with the Darkness of people's hearts," Sora continued blithely, "And something is created that is neither Light nor Dark, is there something that is created with the Light...ness... of a person's heart?"

Kairi had never actually thought of this, and naturally turned to Riku for an explanation.

Riku, who had finished the sugar bowl escapade without a being caught, because he is ninja like that, nodded.

"Yes. DiZ called them Carebears," Riku said.

Care Bear Countdown: 4... 3... 2... 1!  
Who's that coming from somewhere up in the sky,  
Movin' fast and bright as a firefly?  
Just when you think the trouble's gonna pounce,  
Who's going to be there when it really counts?

Just do the Care Bear Countdown  
And send a wish out through the air!  
Just do that Care Bear Countdown  
Just when you need them, they'll be there!

Don't be afraid when clouds are brewin' in your heart  
If you can dream, just send a wish out in the dark  
And do the Care Bear Countdown:  
5... 4... 3... 2... 1...!

"They're like these pastel-colored moogles with pictures printed on their stomachs," Riku explained, talking loudly over the theme music that had abruptly popped up from out of nowhere. "And like Nobodies, each has a unique personality."

"Weird," Sora and Kairi said together. Sora took a sip of his tea, and to Kairi and Riku's surprise and disappointment, he completely didn't notice the eight extra ounces of sugar. He systematically set the cup in its saucer on the picnic blanket.

"How come we've never seen one before?" Sora asked Riku obliviously, to which Riku shrugged.

"DiZ said something about copyright laws, but I wasn't really paying attention."

"That's a pity," Kairi said. "It sounds like they're cute and musical."

Sora groaned something about Antlantis and Karaoke Revolution gone terribly, horribly wrong, but the sheer amount of sugar in the tea had caused him to turn cartwheels and double backflips down the beach, so Kairi and Riku missed what he said and instead turned the conversation towards more pleasant subjects, such as where exactly Maleficent shopped for her fancy threads and who did Axel's hair.


	10. early morning rush hour

**The Price of Beauty, or**  
**Why Everybody Hates Cloud**

While Yuffie foamed at the mouth with an overabundance of toothpaste on her toothbrush, Aerith stood behind her and attempted to tie her hair back behind her head without accidentally jabbing Leon in the eye with her elbow as Leon carefully untangled the knots in his hair with Tifa's hairbrush since he couldn't find his comb. Everyone was crowded together in front of the bathroom sink, every so often shifting in place for a better view in the mirror and bumping into each other along the way. Just as Yuffie bent over the sink and spat out nasty-tasting, orange-flavored toothpaste (she hated, hated, _hated_ orange-flavored toothpaste, but since Cid was the one who shopped most often, that was the kind of toothpaste they ended up with), Tifa joined the party, stage left, and reached around Aerith to get her brush back from Leon, and Yuffie asked Squall ("It's Leon.") if she could borrow his razor.

"...Why?"

"Because girls get underarm hair just like guys do, but for some reason, we're expected to shave it off."

Leon looked like he wished he hadn't asked, but opened the mirror cupboard in search of his razor anyway. He made a mental note to buy one for Yuffie later, since it was unlikely she would get one herself. Meanwhile, Aerith moved out into the hall and continued her conversation with Tifa about going to the shop sometime this weekend for new clothes and maybe a new mat for the bathroom, since the one they had was now a permanent shade of gray.

"And new toothpaste," Yuffie added as Tifa made a disgusted face in the mirror, toothbrush in her mouth. "Definitely need to get new toothpaste."

"Yeth, _pweathe_," Tifa agreed, although she bravely continued to brush her teeth.

The group in front of the mirror had narrowed down to Leon and Tifa by the time Cid showed up. Aerith now trying to convince Leon to join their planned shopping spree while he reluctantly reclaimed his razor from Yuffie, who then joined Aerith in the hall, and Tifa hunted for her earrings without much success on the crowded shelf over the toilet. (Aerith's hair ribbons, Cloud's sunglasses, Merlin's hairclips, a new box of razors, an old box of band-aids, one rubber duck, but no earrings so far.) As the newest arrival, Cid sidled up next to Leon and grabbed the bottle of shaving cream just as Leon nicked her jaw with his razor while shaving. Without even glancing around, Tifa handed him the box of band-aids.

Then, as Leon was tearing open a new band-aid and Aerith tripped over Cid on her way back in - in all the fuss, she had forgotten to brush her hair before tying it back - Merlin showed up shoved them all out the door so he could take a shower, so everyone stood around grumbling and crossing their arms and tapping their feet impatiently. Yuffie remembered she hadn't put on deodorant yet, which any self-respecting ninja put on before a hard day of work. She asked Leon if she could borrow his. Nearly half an hour later, Merlin left quite satisfied, and everyone bottlenecked in the doorway in their haste to finish the morning routine. Then Tifa had to brush her hair again because the steam from Merlin's shower made the ends of her hair curl.

From start to finish, this all took a little more than an hour to accomplish. The grand total of bruises from running into one another and being jammed accidentally into walls and out the doorway was seven that morning, the number of nicks caused by razors an all time low at just the one, and resisting the gag reflex on the taste of orange-flavored toothpaste: 27.

When Yuffie, Aerith, Tifa Leon and Cid finally made it downstairs, they found Cloud already waiting at the kitchen table with a bowl of Heartios Cheerios and the comic section of the newspaper opened in front of him. (Merlin had left to do Merlin-y work). Although he had been conspicuously missing from the early morning bathroom crowd, he was surprisingly well-groomed. Actually, Cloud always looked great, come to think of it, and it didn't hurt that the morning sunlight beamed through the window like a theater spotlight, created pools of subtle shadows and soft light against his face, transformed his blonde hair into shades of gold. He lifted his head when the rush hour crowd arrived, and his eyes flashed a stunning blue under the soft shadow of long eyelashes, eyebrows quirked curiously up and pale lips slightly pursed.

_Wow_, thought Yuffie, Aerith, Tifa, Leon and even Cid, who all, just for an instant, forgot how to breathe. Aerith was the first to recover.

"How long have you been up?" Aerith asked politely.

Cloud glanced up at the ceiling. After doing some early morning math in his head, Cloud belatedly replied, "About five minutes," before returning to his cereal and comics.

It was very strange – Cloud suddenly felt as though an icy wave of cold air had blasted its way through the kitchen. He looked up from the comics, wondering if anyone else had sensed it, too, and found that everyone was staring at him in a particularly unfriendly manner.

He blinked at them, trying to understand what he'd done wrong this time. He hadn't tried to run away again... hadn't even picked a fight with Sephiroth since Chapter 3...

...

The next morning, Cloud joined the usual morning rush hour at the bathroom sink because someone had drawn a black handlebar mustache on him with permanent marker sometime during the night. Yuffie claimed innocence. Aerith did not. Leon handed him a bar of soap, the corners of his mouth threatening to twitch up into a (somewhat smug) smile.


End file.
